


Hadn't Gone as I Planned

by Sheridoodle



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, It's Swashbuckling Hours, M/M, Maplekeene - Freeform, Mermaid Fitzroy, Multichapter, Sailor Argo, Slow Burn, tags will update as I write
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24504247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheridoodle/pseuds/Sheridoodle
Summary: Argo Keene, proud captain of the Mariah, let out a satisfied sigh as he folded up and wax sealed the letter he was writing to his new Firbolg friend. That was, until his thoughts were interrupted by a yell and a rapid knocking at his door.“Captain Keene! Captain Keene! We were fishing for dinner and we ran into a… well, I think you should come see for yourself, captain."This was no fish. No shark or whale, either. No, this was a figure Argo had only heard about in the bedtime stories his mother told him.There, in the fishing net of the Mariah, sat a merperson.(In which a certain fancylad merman gets himself tangled up in our favorite genasi's ship nets and needs help to get untangled and patched up.)
Relationships: Argo Keene/Sir Fitzroy Maplecourt
Comments: 14
Kudos: 73





	1. when you had to bid adieu

**Author's Note:**

> So Sea of Thieves comes out on steam on Wednesday and my gerblin brain has been playing sea shanties on repeat for the last 48 hours so I needed to let out my sailing dreams somehow!! And so here is what I came up with, AU and all. I'm planning on making this more than one chapter, but it won't be too too long, so just hang tight as I work it out. 
> 
> Title from Hidden in the Sand by Tally Hall because I couldn't make a Mitski song work for this one

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Dear Master Firbolg,

I’m so happy that you decided to write to me! It’s so good to hear you are doing alright. Life on the sea has been treating me well. The Mariah has been holding up beautifully since the last time you saw her a few days ago on the docks. Speaking of the docks, I hope you have been to the beach since our last encounter. The shores of Hope really are beautiful, no matter how “anti-forest” you think they are! But I digress. Have you been well, friend? Is Hope just as lively and gorgeous as it was a few days ago? I hope it is, really. I miss the sweets and shops there. The people were all so kind, especially you, Master Firbolg. I would really like to return one day. That day will most likely be soon, knowing my patience. I hope you write to me often until then! 

Sincerely, 

Cpt. Argonaut Keene."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Argo Keene let out a satisfied sigh as he folded up and wax sealed the letter he was writing to his new Firbolg friend. He set the letter to the side to be sent off later, instead resorting to kicking his legs up onto his desk, which was nestled away in the captain’s quarters of his ship, the Mariah. 

Ever since Shebrie Keene had retired from her life on the sea, Argo had been the head captain of her beautiful sailing vessel. He still worked under the queen, as his mother had before him, but Argo’s leadership had recently led to more and more exploration-centered voyages as well. His crew seemed to like that change of pace just as much as he did. 

Their most recent voyage was one of pure sailing the seas and enjoying whatever would come their way. It was then they stumbled across the quaint town of Last Hope nestled near a renowned school, a deadly forest, and a terrifying chasm of wild magic. The crew enjoyed their stay there immensely. They made friends and drew up maps, they ate new foods and drank new drinks. Argo in particular had become acquainted with a mountain giant on the edge of the forest, who he came to call Master Firbolg. After the crew said their goodbyes to the town, the Firbolg decided he wanted to stay in touch, and thus sent Argo a kind (and sort of short) letter. 

Argo smiled as he recalled the events of the past week. It was the most fun he’d had in a while. But he supposed now it was time for more work for the queen after a fun voyage. It was how it always was. 

“Captain Keene! Captain Keene!” Argo’s thoughts were interrupted by a yell and a rapid knocking at his door. He quickly stood up and ran to open it. 

“What is it? Has something gone wrong?” Argo answered the terrified face of one of his crew members, a drow woman named Ren. 

“Not entirely, no,” she said, backing up a little to allow Argo to step out of the cabin. “But we were fishing for dinner and we ran into a… well, I think you should come see for yourself, captain. Follow me.”

Argo’s curiosity had definitely been piqued, he noted as he shut his door and followed Ren up the stairs and to the stern, where he and his crew had set up their fishing gear when they dropped anchor that afternoon. He observed the situation at present. At the starboard railing, about 10 of his crew were hoisting the fishing net over the pulley. They appeared to be struggling to hold it up. Argo looked at the fish in question that was giving his crew so much trouble. Except ‘fish’ wasn’t quite the word he would use to describe the figure in his net. 

This was no fish. No shark or whale, either. No, this was a figure Argo had only heard about in the bedtime stories his mother told him. In the fishing net of the Mariah, glowering and glittering, sat a merperson. They had short brown hair, light brown skin, angry eyes, and a red and yellow tail that sparkled with sunlight every time they moved. And they sure moved alright! They did not seem to like being caught in a net. They thrashed this way and that, and every time they did, their tail and torso would get sliced up by the barbs in the fishing wire. They were very loud too, yelling at Argo’s crew and seemingly not stopping for a breath. 

“Let me go, you insufferable pirates!” They wined in a nasally voice. It was a bit unexpected. Argo had assumed that a merperson as handsome as that would have a more… regal-ish voice. Blood started to coat most of their form at this point. “This is no way to treat a merman! Don’t you know I’m an influencer!?”

Argo sighed. Of course the beautiful merman was egotistical and winey. Great. He stepped up to his crew. 

“Bring the merman on board. We should at least patch him up and untangle him before lettin’ him go. His injuries are our fault, after all,” he instructed them. They gave him a nod and began to do just that. Argo turned his attention back to the merman at hand.

“We’ll let ya go, I promise! You just have to stop thrashing about, you’ll only hurt yourself more,” he said with a pleasant smile. If the merman was going to be difficult, he might as well be as kind to him as possible to make this easy. “But we need ta’ get you out of the net first. We swear we weren’t trying to trap you in particular!”

The merman looked at Argo and his eyes widened when he saw him. Argo swore he could see a small blush creep onto his face when they locked eyes. He stopped moving so much, instead just crossing his arms over his bare chest with a huff. Good, Argo’s kindness approach seemed to be working so far. 

In a few minutes, the net as well as the merman were lowered gently onto the upper deck of the Mariah. The merman sat as still as he could now, wincing whenever he was moved. The pain of his slashes was probably starting to become more apparent. 

“Could you go get some bandages and ointment from the medical chest?” Argo asked the closest crew member to him, a half-orc woman named Kiriel. She nodded and quickly rushed off to grab the supplies. The rest of his crew dispersed as well, either going to find another net to replace the one that was around the merman or to assist Kiriel with the medical supplies. 

Argo approached the net and pulled his dagger out of his boot. The merman curled in on himself a little at the sight of the sharp knife, causing more of the hooks in the net to catch into his skin. He let out a small, pained hiss. Argo shook his head as he knelt down beside the net. 

“It’s ‘fer the net, silly. I’m not gonna hurt ya,” he said with a kind smile. His voice was soft and calm. The merman stopped curling into himself as much. 

“I knew that…” He murmured, watching Argo slice away at the fibers of the net. It was silent except for the sounds of feet on the deck and waves crashing into the ship as Argo cut the merman out of the net link by link. He would occasionally have to pull a hook out of his skin or tail, which caused the merman to take a sharp breath or let out a pained wine. 

“You’re doing great,” Argo would reassure him with a whisper and a smile. “Just a few more hooks left and then I’ll patch ya up.”

The soft words seemed to calm the merman down from his previous terrified state, just leaving him a little bit flustered and also residually irritated with his situation. Eventually, the net was all off of him and fell around him with a satisfying ‘thunk’. He sighed with relief. Argo picked it all up and tossed it over to the port-side railing. They would dispose of it later. 

Kiriel came back just in time, her arms full of bandages and various ointments they had gathered along their travels. She handed them over to Argo and took her leave. Argo knelt back down next to the merman and opened a bottle of a cold liquid that stopped bleeding. 

The merman wasn’t speaking, which was concerning. For someone so vocal earlier, it was a bit of a shock to see him not speaking at all. Wait…

“Hey, hold on, are you alright being out of the water for so long?” Argo asked as he poured some of the liquid onto a towel. The merman looked unamused. 

“Yeah, duh,” he said. “You… you do see me breathing, right?”

“Oh, yeah! I do. You were just so quiet and non-winey though, I just figured something was wrong,” Argo said, slightly embarrassed that he didn’t notice the merman was breathing just fine, but he recovered from it with a small jab. He started to rub the ointment on the merman’s arm gashes. They weren’t all too big, but there were a lot of them. He didn’t know how he would treat the tail, though. It was different from most skin types, even pretty different from his own water genasi skin. He would address it when he got there. 

“Ha ha, very funny, mister pirate. Real humorous.” The merman winced at the chill of the medicine on his skin, but he kept an unamused expression on his face. 

“Excuse you, mister fancy merman, but I’ll have you know I’m not a pirate!” Argo said, moving from the merman’s arms to his chest. “I’m a sailor, and a captain at that.”

“Well sorry mister captain blue, it’s usually the pirates who try to catch unsuspecting merpeople in their nets. How was I to know?” He waited until Argo was finished wiping the insufferably cold liquid over his chest before crossing his arms over it. Argo sighed and just grabbed the bandages.

“I already told ya, it was an accident! Now give me your arm,” Argo said. The merman complied.

“Yeah, well, I think I have a right to be bitter, captain blue. Your fishing net was really painful, I’ve never seen one with hooks in it before.” The merman watched as Argo methodically wrapped the bandage around and around and around his arm. When he finished with the left, he switched arms and let him start working on the right. 

“Please, it’s Captain Argonaut. But just call me Argo, it’s much easier,” Argo said. The merman rolled his eyes at Argo’s informality. 

“Nicknames are for common folk, Argonaut,” the merman sneered. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?” 

“Well, seeing as I am a commoner sailor, I suppose not. You know, I don’t have to patch you up if you’re so annoyed by my commoner company, mister fancylad.” Argo jested. Even though he was joking around with the fancy mermaid, Argo was still a little bit miffed at his comment. Why did he have to make this about social status? Argo was perfectly comfortable as a common sailor, and nicknames were charming in his opinion. 

“Seeing as it is one hundred percent you and your crew’s fault that I have hook holes all over my body, you absolutely do have to patch me up,” he snarked. “And it’s Sir Fitzroy, thank you.”

Agro just let out a huff and moved to wrap up the wounds on Fitzroy’s chest. He supposed the kindness approach was a little bit of a bust. This merman was a brat… but at least he was a brat with a name. He couldn’t help but feel sorry, really. He was probably only angry because of the shit he’s been put through today. It’s not right to judge someone harshly while they’re in a bad headspace, his Ma would tell him. 

“Look, Sir Fitzroy, I really am sorry for getting ya caught up in this. It was an accident, but we should’ve been more careful with where we were fishing,” Argo said. He ripped the final bandage off from the roll, tucking it gently into the wrap that spanned nearly all of Fitzroy’s torso. He looked like some kind of mer-mummy. Argo looked Fitzroy in the eyes, and he could see some of the irritation leaving his expression at the apology. 

“I hate to admit it, but it’s not all your fault…” Fitzroy said. He avoided Argo’s gaze. “I should have watched where I was going. They always say to avoid the reefs of Last Hope. I guess this is what I get for not listening, huh?”

“Well why do they say that?” Argo asked. “The reefs and shores of Hope are beautiful. I don’t know why anyone would want to avoid them.”

“It’s the boats. There have been so many reports of missing merpeople taken by pirates or shot with muskets or left to suffocate in nets near Last Hope. So we’re all told to stay away from here. I suppose I should thank you for not kidnapping me or leaving me to bleed out,” Fitzroy said. 

“You don’t have to thank me for being a decent person and not… gods, kidnapping merleople, you say? That’s awful.” Argo couldn’t believe that people would go so far as to take an unsuspecting creature captive. It was inhumane! Fitzroy’s smile softened at Argo’s genuine kindness. Argo moved down to work on the wounds on Fitzroy’s tail, but Fitzroy grabbed his wrist and stopped him in his tracks. 

“No, no, don’t use that stuff on my tail. The tail heals faster in the water,” he said. Argo was startled a bit by the sudden contact. “Just use the dry towel to wipe up the blood for now. And yeah.. it is pretty awful.” 

They fell into silence as Argo nodded and wiped up the last bits of blood from Fitzroy’s tail. Luckily, his flukes didn’t get ripped at all. That would have been a much bigger problem for both of them if that happened. 

“Alright, I think we’re done here,” Argo said. He folded up the bloodied towels and set them aside. He’d wash them later. “Y’know, Sir Fitzroy, I’ve never actually met a merperson before.” 

“Yeah, that’s kind of the whole point, Argonaut,” Fitzroy said. He was playing with the bandages on his arms. They were funny feeling, he’d never had land bandages on before. He wondered how they’d hold up underwater. “We like to stay hidden.”

“Well then, I’m glad I got to see one in my lifetime then. Feels like a special occasion. Especially to meet one who’s an… influencer, didn’t you say?” Argo teased. He stood up, rolling up his sleeves and readying himself to put Fitzroy back in the water. Fitzroy huffed at the comment. 

“Yes, an Influencer. I’m very important down there, and don’t you forget it once you put me back in.” Fitzroy said. Ah, there was the spunk. Not too mean-spirited, but not soft. Argo was gonna miss someone who challenged his judgement like Fitzroy did. 

“I won’t, I promise! Now, c’mere.” He bent down and lifted Fitzroy up bridal style. Fitzroy let out a small shriek, not at all used to the feeling of being carried, and wrapped his arms around Argo’s neck for support. 

“Hhhholy sh- shit! Ha! Wow! That’s new!” Fitzroy exclaimed, not sure what to do with himself while Argo carried him down the steps to the main deck. He supposed it would be easier to get back into the water from there. 

“Never been carried before?” Argo asked.

“No!” Argo eventually managed to set Fitzroy down on the starboard-side railing of the main deck, putting his hands on his hips and gesturing for Fitzroy to hop off whenever he pleased. 

“It was nice to meet you, Sir Fitzroy. It would be an honor to meet again one day,” Argo said. He didn’t know what it was, but he felt himself wanting to keep in touch with the merman. He was special, Argo knew it. And not just because he was an influencer or whatever. He felt like he did when he was saying goodbye to the Firbolg. Fitzroy let out a laugh.

“Maybe we will! Just don’t catch me in your awful net again. I’d be happy to just swim up and say hello if it meant not getting pricked to death by that thing.” Fitzroy reached out and playfully jabbed Argo’s chest with an accusatory finger. 

“I’ll try my best not to.” 

“I’m holding you to that, Argonaut! Adieu!” And then he pushed himself off of the railing and fell back into the ocean. He looked back up and gave Argo a wave, which he happily returned. Then he swam off, his glittery tail disappearing beneath the waves just like that. 

Argo turned back to the main deck to see most of his crew standing there in shock. 

“You befriended the merman!?” Ren was the first one to break the silence. 

“Well, I wouldn’t say I befriended him! We just became… acquaintances, that’s all.” Argo said. For being a captain, he sure felt sheepish being the center of attention of all of his crew in this matter. 

“He called you Argonaut and you let him,” Kiriel said. “You always make us call you Captain Argo or just Argo. If that’s not something, I don’t know what is.”

“I’m- y’know what, we’ll discuss this over dinner! Weigh anchor, everyone, let’s go find a safer place to fish!” Argo walked off, back up to the ship’s wheel to steer once more. As he passed his crew, they saw a faint blue blush on his cheeks.

Kiriel and Ren just smiled at each other. They got him.

“10 GP we get a letter from fish boy in a week asking us to come back to Hope.”

“I’m holding you to that.”


	2. said you'd never love anew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitzroy Maplecourt, Knight in Absentia to the Realm of Goodcastle and Haughty Merman Extraordinaire, had never met a land dweller. Ever. His mother always told him they were dangerous, thieving, unkind monsters. And he believed her. 
> 
> He believed her only up until recently. 
> 
> “What were you thinking? Going out to Hope Reef all by yourself? You know what could happen out there.” His hostess, Rainer Michelle, scolded him while re-patching all of his wounds. 
> 
> Truthfully, Fitzroy couldn’t stop thinking about Captain Argonaut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been a while!! I apologize for my lack of a consistent update schedule, I had some work to do and kind of neglected to keep writing. But no more!! Enjoy the chapter, and I promise the next chapter will come out sooner than this one did.

Fitzroy Maplecourt, Knight in Absentia to the Realm of Goodcastle and Haughty Merman Extraordinaire, had never met a land dweller. Ever. Sure he’d seen some of them from a great distance with the help of his best friend Rainer, but he’d never met one until today. Aside from stories, he’d never known how they spoke or how they acted or what their morals were. 

“Fitzy, you can’t go near there baby.” He remembered his mother’s sweet voice saying to him as she dragged him away from a nearby ship. 

“Why not, maw?” 

“All of them folks are dangerous up there. Humans, elves, dwarves, all them sort. The Land Dwellers, your aunt likes to call them. They… aren’t very kind to us merfolk. They like to take whatever they can get their dirty little paws on.” She brushed a lock of his hair behind his tiny ear. “And that could mean you too, Fitzy. Promise me you won’t go near them, alright?” 

“Alright maw, I promise.” And he believed her.

He believed her only up until recently. And now, as much as Fitzroy wanted to believe his wise old mum, he was currently zero for one on bad land dwellers. Sure he may have been hurt really badly by them, but he was apologized to and gently cut loose and cleaned up and wrapped in soft bandages. He was consoled, and while they may have had some misunderstandings, he was apologized to and set free with a wish of meeting again one day. His first meeting with a land dweller was anything but monstrous.

Truthfully, Fitzroy couldn’t stop thinking about Captain Argonaut. 

“Have you been listening to anything I’ve been asking you, Fitzroy?” The annoyed voice of Rainer Michelle snapped him out of his daydream. 

“Of course I have!” He said. She took one of the bandages that she’d been unwrapping from Fitzroy’s torso and set it onto her countertop. 

“Oh yeah? Name one thing I said.” She started on the next bandage. 

“Uh… I...well, you know,” He stumbled over his words and eventually gave up by falling completely silent. She just gave him a disappointed glare and kept undoing his bandages. 

“As I was saying, what were you thinking? Going out to Hope Reef all by yourself? You know what could happen out there.” She scolded him. To be honest, he really wasn’t thinking. He just got so frustrated with his magic going haywire that he had to get out of there, and so what if it might have led him to the exact place he was told not to go? It’s not his fault he desperately needed something that he had full control of. 

“Look, it wasn’t quite my plan to go all the way to Hope. It just seemed to… happen!” He waved his arms around as he spoke. 

“krfvhjdfgsgl,” Snippers gurgled from the counter. He poked his little face out from underneath the growing pile of bandages. Fitzroy sent him a defeated glance. 

“Snippers, don’t mention my- Can you please leave the lecturing to her? I don’t need my crab dunking on me too.” 

“schshgfdkjdafrw.” He scuttled out from the bandage pile and hopped onto Rainer’s shoulder. He plopped himself down with a gurgle that sounded awfully like a “humph!” 

Rainer finished unwrapping the bandages and started rubbing her hands together to warm them up. She had picked up some healing magic from one of the peppy old clerics in the commune and Fitzroy figured he’d let her give it a shot on him. It wouldn’t hurt to try, right? He sure hoped it wouldn’t at least.

“It wasn’t all that bad Rainer, I promise,” he said as she placed her hands on his arm and started to channel her magic. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths. Fitzroy could already feel the magic starting to flow into him. He envied how she could do that so damn easily. 

“Wasn’t all that- Fitzroy you got torn up out there. What do you mean ‘wasn't all that bad?’” Her eyes didn’t open and her concentration didn’t break, but she was clearly struggling to keep it that way based on her reaction. 

“The sailors said they were sorry, really. It was an honest accident.” Only then did he realize his mistake. Rainer gripped his arm in shock and almost fell out of her floating chair, completely breaking her concentration. And while he was pretty much halfway healed by then, her death grip still felt like hot iron on his wounds.

“You spoke to the land dwellers!?” She yelled. 

“Ow ow ow ow, hey Rainer could you maybe let go of the stab wounds please?” He hissed in pain. She quickly let go once she realized how intensely she reacted. 

“Shit, sorry Fitzroy, I’m just… wow. I don’t know whether to be excited or even more pissed off!” She let out a breathy laugh and dragged a hand through her hair, taking all of it in. 

“Please choose the first, I don’t think I can handle more lecturing.” He mumbled. She luckily didn’t hear him. 

“What were their names? What did they look like? Were they humans? Elves? Dwarves? Agh, I have so many questions!” Her eyes were lit up and it looked like she was going to catapult herself out of her chair in excitement. And then a look of realization passed across her face and it died down. “Gods.. Fitzroy, how would your mother react to this?” 

Shit. That was the question. How would his mother take this? Luckily, she wasn’t there right now to see her son all beaten up, but Fitzroy feared she would lock him in the cellar if he even laid eyes on a land dweller, let alone spoke to one and touched one. And he knew the first person to report back to his mom about anything happening in the commune would be Rainer, and she’s the only one who knows, so that means… 

“Okay, let’s make a deal. I need you to promise not to tell my mother anything that happened today, not by letter and not even in person. If you promise me that, I’ll answer every single question you have to the best of my ability.” He said. He really didn’t want to talk about his time with the Captain, that was kind of personal, but if it meant preventing Rainer from snitching… he’d do whatever it took. “And you also have to finish healing me afterward, too.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and took a second to really think about it. Fitzroy nearly started biting his lip in anticipation, but he stopped himself for the sake of his beautiful skin. 

“Fine.” 

“Yes! Rainer, you will not regret this!” He clapped his hands together and swam out of his chair with joy. 

“Alright, alright, but sit down! I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I had a lot of questions.” He floated back down into the seat and let out a sigh. “Okay, number one, what exactly happened that led to you talking to land dwellers and getting ripped to shreds.”

“Simple answer? Fishing net. I was swimming through the reef. And through my current mood then, I didn’t even see it. It was all poky and it had hooks all lining the inside of it. It was a nasty thing, I’m telling you.” 

“Ouch, that sounds really painful. So it was just their net that slashed you up? None of them actually laid a hand on you?” She asked. 

“Weeeeell-” he started to say, and Rainer gasped. “No! No, not in the way you might think! Alright, so after I got caught, they pulled me up and I started really going off on them. I didn’t even know if they could understand me or not, I was just really pissed.”

“Rightfully so!” 

“Exactly! So then one of them runs off and a few minutes later the captain comes up to mediate the whole situation. He leaned over the railing and do you know what he did? He said it was an accident and promised to patch me up and set me free!” Rainer’s jaw dropped at that and Fitzroy laughed. 

“I was shocked too! Albeit I was still pissed, but I wasn’t expecting him to be so nice. So then they pulled me on board and he slashed me out of the net. And then he used this sweet smelling cold… stuff to wipe up the blood. And after that he wrapped me up and gave me a really earnest apology and let me go.” Sure, it wasn’t quite that simple, but all the banter and the insults they threw at each other before the apology wouldn’t have helped his case very much. 

“Wow, he sounds really sweet! Especially for a captain. Angus’ books always talk about evil pirate captains who kidnap us. Did he tell you his name?” She asked and leaned forward in her chair. She propped her elbows up on her tail and placed her chin in her hands. 

“Captain Argonaut,” he said, his voice oozing with a sickly sweet tone that he did not intend to be there. Rainer raised an eyebrow.

“Captain Argonaut, huh? Interesting,” she said with an all-knowing smirk that Fitzroy hated so much. She knew something he didn’t know, and it irked him.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, nothing! What was he? Human, elf, dwarf?” 

“I think he was a genasi. His skin was blue and his hair flowed a bit like water.” He would also have commented that he smelled a lot like the ocean too, but first of all that would have been weird, and second of all he assumed most sailors smelled like the ocean from spending so much time on it. 

“Maybe that’s why he was so kind to you, genasi and merfolk aren’t very far off from each other,” Rainer said. “Or maybe he was a rare case of especially sweet sailors. Whatever it was, you got extremely lucky, Fitzroy. And you should not be going back there anytime soon!” 

“But-” He started, but was shot down by a pointed glare from Rainer. No meant no, even if he did really want to take Captain Argonaut up on his wish to see him again. But as a guest in the Michelle house for the time being, he had to listen to what Rainer said. It was common courtesy. “Okay. No Hope Reef from now on.” 

“That’s the answer I like to hear. I don’t want to see you hurt like this, Fitzroy, you know that. These wounds were from kind sailors, so just imagine what ruthless pirates will do to you. What’ll I tell your mom if you don’t come back from the reef in the future?” Rainer placed her hands on Fitz, preparing to heal him again. She had gotten all her questions answered for the time being, so it was time to heal him up again. The magic danced from wound to wound, sealing each one up and only leaving a tiny scar. 

Fitzroy knew Rainer meant all of what she said in the kindest way possible. She wouldn’t want to guilt trip him or hold him back from what he was passionate about, she was just genuinely concerned about his safety. 

Rainer was kind enough to let him stay with her after he got kicked out of sentry school in his hometown after his magic started acting up. He was here to study magic in her little mage commune, and it would only be fair if he repaid her kindness by not getting himself kidnapped or killed by sailors in a distant reef. So he just sat and stayed quiet while she finished working her magic. Her delicate, poised, controlled magic. 

He had to squeeze his fist to quell his envy. 

~~

It was after dinner when Fitzroy sat down at the desk in his room (or, well, Rainer’s guest room) with a frustrated sigh. No reef meant no Argonaut, and no Argonaut meant his very first interaction with a land dweller was also his last. 

“hgfadfaljfagdsk,” Snippers gurgled, snapping him out of his thoughts. He scuttled across the desk. Swimming at his side was one of Rainer’s skeletal creatures she had around the house, and while Fitzroy greatly appreciated Rainer, her necromancy always freaked him out just a little. Snippers sat down on a piece of kelp parchment, and in his hand was one of his old bandages from Captain Argonaut. He offered it to the solemn mermaid. 

Fitzroy took it and examined it. It was so different from any bandage he’d ever had on before, and it was still stained a little with the cold stuff Argonaut used on his wounds. It didn’t appear magical at all, which was almost comforting. Back home, almost no one had magic. Just weapons and regular, plain-old knowledge. Was the land like that too? No magic he had to wrestle with to keep under control? He wanted to know more about land-things like odd bandages and magicless healing liquids and humans and dwarves and elves and genasi. He wanted to know more about the land. 

He looked back at Snippers on the parchment and an idea came to mind. If he couldn’t go see the Captain at Hope reef, he would just find another spot. The crab seemed to read his mind. He stepped off the parchment and kicked over a pen for Fitzroy to use. Fitzroy turned to the skeletal garden eel beside Snippers. 

“Are you particularly any good at delivering letters?” He asked. The eel bobbed it’s skull up and down as a way of saying yes. A smile appeared on Fitzroy’s face. “Perfect.”

He picked up the pen and started to write. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Dear Captain Argonaut....


End file.
